My Life — Volume 2 eBook

PART III

1850-1861

Minna had been lucky enough to find quarters
near Zurich which corresponded very closely with the
wishes I had so emphatically expressed before leaving.
The house was situated in the parish of Enge, a good
fifteen minutes’ walk from the town, on a site
overlooking the lake, and was an old-fashioned hostelry
called ‘Zum Abendstern,’ belonging to
a certain Frau Hirel, who was a pleasant old lady.
The second floor, which was quite self-contained
and very quiet, offered us humble but adequate accommodations
for a modest rent.

I arrived early in the morning and found Minna still
in bed. She was anxious to know whether I had
returned simply out of pity; but I quickly succeeded
in obtaining her promise that she would never again
refer to what had taken place. She was soon quite
herself again when she began to show me the progress
she had made in arranging the rooms.

Our position had for some years been growing more
comfortable, in spite of the fact that at this time
various difficulties again arose, and our domestic
happiness seemed tolerably secure. Yet I could
never quite master a restless inclination to deviate
from anything that was regarded as conventional.

Our two pets, Peps and Papo, largely helped to make
our lodgings homelike; both were very fond of me,
and were sometimes even too obtrusive in showing their
affection. Peps would always lie behind me in
the armchair while I was working, and Papo, after
repeatedly calling out ‘Richard’ in vain,
would often come fluttering into my study if I stayed
away from the sitting-room too long. He would
then settle down on my desk and vigorously shuffle
about the papers and pens. He was so well trained
that he never uttered the ordinary cry of a bird,
but expressed his sentiments only by talking or singing.
As soon as he heard my step on the staircase he would
begin whistling a tune, as, for instance, the great
march in the finale of the Symphony in C minor, the
beginning of the Eighth Symphony in F major, or even
a bright bit out of the Rienzi Overture. Peps,
our little dog, on the other hand, was a highly sensitive
and nervous creature. My friends used to call
him ‘Peps the petulant,’ and there were
times when we could not speak to him even in the friendliest
way without bringing on paroxysms of howls and sobs.
These two pets of course helped very much to increase
the mutual understanding between myself and my wife.

Unfortunately, there was one perpetual source of quarrel,
arising from my wife’s behaviour towards poor
Nathalie. Until her death she shamefully withheld
from the girl the fact that she was her mother.
Nathalie, therefore, always believed that she was Minna’s
sister, and consequently could not understand why she
should not have the same rights as my wife, who always
treated her in an authoritative way, as a strict mother
would do, and seemed to think herself justified in